Apart from His promise that we will have happiness and peace of mind if we surrender to Him and to the fate that He has determined for us, Allah also promises us that He will allow those who have faith and trust in Him and perform good actions to have a good life in this world:

Anyone who acts rightly, male or female, being a believer, We will give them a good life and We will recompense them according to the best of what they did. (Surat an-Nahl: 97)

There are many good things in this world. In order to have a good life, one thing we need is friends we can trust and with whom we can enjoy a relationship of mutual affection and real intimacy. Allah lends His support to His servants who have sincere faith in Him and who trust Him by giving them friends who are good Muslims like themselves-trustworthy, honourable people who are friends of Allah. That is why a Muslim is never lonely. One of Allah's greatest gifts to the faithful is to ensure that they always have friends with them - fellow-Muslims whom they can trust, whom they love and respect and whom they hold in greater honour than they hold themselves.

One of the greatest difficulties for the ignorant-those who follow a code of ethics different from that outlined in the Qur'an-is not having anyone near them who can be a friend to them; they have no one on whose wisdom and sincerity they can rely, who will stand by them in all circumstances and who will give them support based on sincere affection rather than on any desire for personal advantage.

Friendships between people who do not follow the values set out in the Qur'an and exemplified in the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, always contain an element of conflict of interest. These people may not have anyone near them to support them if they find themselves in material or emotional difficulties. This never happens with friendships between Muslims. Muslims have such high standards that they will give priority to meeting the needs of other people even when they themselves are in need. Allah describes these qualities of the believers in the following verse:

Those who were already settled in the abode, and in belief, before they (the emigrants) came, love those who have emigrated to them and do not find in their hearts any need for what they have been given and prefer them to themselves even if they themselves are needy. It is the people who are safe-guarded from the avarice of their own selves who are successful. (Surat al-Hashr: 9)

A good Muslim does not enjoy being in the company of those who do not call on the name of Allah, who rebel against destiny and who have a liking for idle talk. That is why Allah ensures that Muslims provide support for each other. The faithful constantly call on the name of Allah, speak enthusiastically of the beautiful things He has created and give thanks for His gifts. Everything they say has a reason and a purpose; in everything they say there is joy, wisdom and beauty, and strength, truth and majesty. Their words never cause distress, pessimism or despair and never lead people to give up hope that a solution will be found; their words are always hope-giving, like an announcement of good news, bringing enlightenment to those who listen and opening up new horizons for them; their words provide endless food for thought and create a feeling of spaciousness and relaxation in the listener. No one offends anyone else, no one says hurtful things and no one speaks with envy or derision; instead, there is real friendship, joy and affection, as there is the honesty of speaking the truth, and real and genuine counsel in the affairs of this life and the path to the next.

Another characteristic of a good life is that it is lived in clean, healthy and comfortable surroundings. Muslims always choose the cleanest and most healthy alternative. The conditions in which the ignorant live, however, are generally dirty, disorderly and depressing. Such people prefer out-of-the-way places that are dark and smoky, even for recreation-although the soul of man was created in such a way as to be able to feel pleasure in the cleanness and beauty of Heaven.

Allah may make some of the faithful rich, and if He does, it is through His grace and favour, but the faithful never pursue the material benefits of this world as an end in itself. Their only desire is to obtain Allah's grace and mercy, and to gain the Garden that Allah has beautified with an infinite number of good things. Thus they use the blessings and the wealth Allah has given them in the best possible way, in order to obtain His blessing. They are not wasteful. They protect those in need and enable them to enjoy the good things Allah has made available. They also use everything they own in the best possible way as a means of causing the teachings outlined in the Qur'an to become more widely known and practised.

Unlike the faithful, those who deny Allah often have a life of never-ending distress and suffering. Even though they may be rich and have all the wordly goods they could ask for, Allah gives such people heaviness of heart:

When Allah desires to guide someone, He expands his breast to Islam. When He desires to misguide someone, He makes his breast narrow and constricted as if he were climbing up into the sky. That is how Allah defiles those who disbelieve. (Surat al-An'am: 125)

The only way for us to have a good life both in this world and the next is to love Allah, to fear Him, to obtain His friendship and to respect the rules and limitations set out in the Qur'an.

When you go outside, the sunlight strikes your face without bothering you, and you owe this to the perfect order existing within the solar system. The sun, which conveys a pleasant warmth and light for our benefit, is only, in fact, like a deep pit consisting of red gas clouds. It is made up of whirlpools of giant flames which gush from the boiling surface to millions of kilometers away, and of giant tornados rising to the surface from the bottom. These could be fatal to mankind. Yet, the atmosphere and the magnetic field of the Earth filter all the deadly harmful rays of the sun before they reach us. It is this perfect order in the solar system that makes the Earth a livable planet.

When we look at the structure of the solar system, we find a very delicate balance. What protects the planets of the solar system from splitting off from the system and being hurled into the freezing cold of outer space is the balance between the gravity of the sun and the centrifugal force of the planets. The sun attracts all the planets through the great force of gravity it exerts, while they continuously counter this attraction by means of their centrifugal force owing to their moving in their orbits. But if these planets rotated at a slightly slower speed, they would be attracted by the sun so strongly that they would plunge into the solar giant and be swallowed in a huge explosion. The opposite of this is also possible. If the planets rotated at a greater speed, this time the gravitational force of the sun wouldn't be enough to hold them and the planets would be hurled into the void of outer space. However, a very delicate balance has been established, and the system continues to exist because it maintains this balance.

In the meantime, it is important to note that the above-mentioned balance is established for each planet separately because each planet's distance from the sun is unique. In addition, their masses are different. For this reason, for each one of them, a different rotation speed has been established so that they can avoid both colliding with the sun and being hurled off into outer space.

This example constitutes only minor evidence for the magnificent balance in the solar system. Anyone who possesses reason can understand that the balance which puts giant planets and the entire solar system into order, and which moreover keeps this order for day after day and century after century, cannot have come into existence by chance. It is evident that this order has been delicately calculated. Allah, the All-Powerful, shows us, with the perfect details He has created in the universe, that everything is under His control. Astronomers such as Kepler and Galileo, scientists who worked to uncover the extraordinarily sensitive balance in the solar system, stated many times that this system indicated a very obvious design and constituted evidence for the sovereignty of Allah over the entire universe. Allah creates and holds everything with His boundless knowledge; He is All-Powerful.

Many evolutionist sources from time to time carry the claim that humans and apes share 99 percent of their genetic information and that this is proof of evolution. This evolutionist claim focuses particularly on chimpanzees, and says that this creature is the closest monkey to man, for which reason there is a kinship between the two. However, this is a false proof put forward by evolutionists who take advantage of the layman's lack of information on these subjects.

For a very long time, the evolutionist choir had been propagating the unsubstantiated thesis that there is very little genetic difference between humans and chimps. In every piece of evolutionist literature, you could read sentences like "we are 99 percent identical to chimps" or "there is only 1 percent of DNA that makes us human." Although no conclusive comparison between human and chimp genomes has been done, the Darwinist ideology led them to assume that there is very little difference between the two species.

A study in October 2002 revealed that the evolutionist propaganda on this issue-like many others-is completely false. Humans and chimps are not "99% similar" as the evolutionist fairy tale went on. Genetic similarity turns out to be less than 95 %. In a news story reported by CNN.com, entitled "Humans, chimps more different than thought," it reads:

There are more differences between a chimpanzee and a human being than once believed, according to a new genetic study.

Biologists have long held that the genes of chimps and humans are about 98.5 percent identical. But Roy Britten, a biologist at the California Institute of Technology, said in a study published this week that a new way of comparing the genes shows that the human and chimp genetic similarity is only about 95 percent.

Britten based this on a computer program that compared 780,000 of the 3 billion base pairs in the human DNA helix with those of the chimp. He found more mismatches than earlier researchers had, and concluded that at least 3.9 percent of the DNA bases were different.

This led him to conclude that there is a fundamental genetic difference between the species of about 5 percent. 1

New Scientist, a leading science magazine and a strong supporter of Darwinism, reported the following on the same subject in an article titled "Human-chimp DNA difference trebled":

We are more unique than previously thought, according to new comparisons of human and chimpanzee DNA. It has long been held that we share 98.5 per cent of our genetic material with our closest relatives. That now appears to be wrong. In fact, we share less than 95 per cent of our genetic material, a three-fold increase in the variation between us and chimps. 2

Biologist Boy Britten and other evolutionists continue to assess the result in terms of the evolutionary theory, but in fact there is no scientific reason to do so. The theory of evolution is supported neither by the fossil record nor by genetic or biochemical data. On the contrary, evidence shows that different life forms on Earth appeared quite abruptly without any evolutionary ancestors and that their complex systems prove the existence of an "intelligent design."

Moreover, the above-mentioned basic proteins are common vital molecules present, not just in chimpanzees, but also in very many completely different living creatures. The structure of the proteins in all these species is very similar to that of the proteins present in humans.

For example, the genetic analyses published in New Scientist have revealed a 75% similarity between the DNA of nematode worms and man. 3 This definitely does not mean that there is only a 25% difference between man and these worms!

On the other hand, in another finding which also appeared in the media, it was stated that the comparisons carried out between the genes of fruit flies belonging to the Drosophila genus and human genes yielded a similarity of 60%. 4

When living things other than man are studied, it appears that there is no molecular relationship such as that claimed by evolutionists. 5 This fact shows that the concept of similarity is not evidence for evolution.

It is surely natural for the human body to bear some molecular similarities to other living beings, because they all are made up of the same molecules, they all use the same water and atmosphere, and they all consume foods consisting of the same molecules. Certainly, their metabolisms, and therefore their genetic make-ups, would resemble one another. This, however, is not evidence that they evolved from a common ancestor.

This "common material" is the result not of evolution but of "common design," that is, of their being created upon the same plan.

It is possible to explain this matter with an example: all construction in the world is done with similar materials (brick, iron, cement, etc.). This, however, does not mean that these buildings "evolved" from each other. They are constructed separately by using common materials. The same holds for living beings as well. However, the complexity of the structure of living things cannot be compared to that of bridges, of course.

Life did not originate as the result of unconscious coincidences as evolution claims, but as the result of the creation of God, the Almighty, the possessor of infinite knowledge and wisdom.